By Bill Bernardoni
The FCC approved the KMOX sale and told a worried listener his concerns were speculative. Fair enough. Then somebody has to watch what actually happens in year one.
Every station sale starts with the same press release. The new owner is “committed to the community.” The talent is “excited for the next chapter.” Nothing important is going to change.
I’ve worked at stations headed for new ownership. I left before either sale closed, so I wasn’t in the building when the keys changed hands. The press release is still the easy part. The real answer shows up later, in the schedule, the staff list, and whether anybody is still in the newsroom at 5 a.m. when the storm rolls through.
So I paid attention when the FCC cleared Hoffmann Media Group’s $20 million purchase of Audacy’s St. Louis cluster, KMOX included. KMOX isn’t just a St. Louis station. Its signal reaches across a big piece of downstate Illinois. My grandparents down there would have KMOX on while my grandma was making something delicious in the kitchen. In part, that’s where I fell in love with radio.
Here’s my take. The FCC made the right legal call. But “wait and see” only works if somebody actually watches.
The FCC’s Answer Was “Wait and See”
A Missouri listener named Corbett Shannon objected to the deal. “KMOX is not simply another radio station,” he wrote, per Inside Radio. “For generations, Missourians have relied upon KMOX during natural disasters, public emergencies, elections, and moments of profound civic importance.” He asked the FCC to require independently staffed local newsrooms and protections for editorial independence.
The FCC’s Audio Division said no. It called his “speculative assertions” “insufficient,” declined the safeguards as “unnecessary,” and said licensees keep discretion over how they serve their communities, news and public affairs included. It called his worries about editorial independence “conjectural,” TALKERS reported. In a footnote, it said the bigger questions about localism and journalism belong in a rulemaking, not a single license transfer.
The FCC Got the Law Right
I’ll be fair to the agency and the buyer, because the lazy version of this column just yells “consolidation.”
Hoffmann complies with the local ownership rules and has no other full-power commercial radio station in St. Louis, Inside Radio reported. This is its first move into radio. The FCC can’t block a sale because a listener fears what might happen someday. Regulators shouldn’t be programming radio stations anyway.
There’s also a real chance this is good news for KMOX. Hoffmann is bringing back Becky Domyan, the former Audacy St. Louis market manager, to run the stations. An owner that wants to build a regional media business may invest more than a national group has lately. I hope that’s how it goes.
But Shannon wasn’t wrong to ask. He was just early. The FCC’s answer moves the job of watching from Washington to the people who listen.
What Actually Changes in Year One
From what I’ve seen at stations, the first year after a sale is when the real decisions get made. They rarely come with a press release. A newscast gets “streamlined.” A local shift becomes a voice-tracked one. The overnight person isn’t replaced. The weekend public-affairs show moves to 5:30 a.m. Sunday. None of it breaks an FCC rule, and all of it changes what the station is.
If you care about a station that’s being sold, here’s what I’d watch. Are the local newscasts still on, at the same times and the same length? Is there still a live human in the building when severe weather hits? Did the news staff stay, and when people leave, do the jobs get filled? I’d check those at six months and again at twelve.
Three Places to Watch
St. Louis. KMOX is the big test. A new owner with a newspaper background and a returning local market president has every reason to keep the news machine running. Let’s see it.
Galesburg. Closer to home, Wisconsin-based Civic Media is buying 13 stations in west central Illinois and southeast Iowa, including WGIL in Galesburg and KBUR in Burlington, TSPR reported. FCC approval is still pending. Civic Media is a public-benefit corporation with a local-news mission, and the Galesburg general manager talked about “strengthening our commitment to local information.” That’s the right promise. Year one will show whether it holds.
Cape Cod. On the same day the KMOX ruling came out, Inside Radio reported that ahead of Salt Air Broadcasting’s $1.75 million purchase of three CCB Media stations, the operations manager, several on-air hosts, the general manager, and the digital staff are leaving. Some of those exits may be voluntary, and staffing is the buyer’s call. But it’s a reminder that “transition” usually means people.
The Bottom Line
I don’t think station sales are bad. Some of the best local radio in the country comes from owners who bought a tired station and cared about it. As I wrote recently, local news still sells. And listeners follow people, not call letters.
But the FCC just told us, in plain language, that it won’t do the watching. So we will.
Keep the newscasts. Keep the people. Keep someone in the building when the weather turns.
That’s the test. Not the press release.
Bill Bernardoni is the founder of Bernardoni Media & Marketing in Ottawa, Illinois, and co-host of America at 250: Due Diligence with former Voice of America White House bureau chief Steve Herman.
Running a station through a sale or a new owner’s first year? Let’s talk it through.
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